A Manhattan jury is likely to soon deliver a verdict in the case against former President Donald Trump, a decision that will have implications for the 2024 presidential campaign.
Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in an alleged scheme to cover up a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election in the Manhattan case. It’s the first and possibly only trial of four to be completed before November’s election.
The trial could end with a jury acquittal, a guilty verdict on all or some counts, or a hung jury. It’s hard to predict how long the jury will deliberate — it could come back within hours or it could take several days or even weeks to decide.
Here’s what we know about what could happen next.
If Trump is convicted, when would sentencing occur?
Legal experts said sentencing could come months after a guilty verdict is announced. Any sentence imposed could be stayed pending an appeal.
How would an appeal of a guilty verdict play out?
Trump is all but certain to appeal if he is convicted. That process would probably extend beyond Election Day.
After sentencing, Trump would have 30 days to state in writing that he will appeal. He would have months more to file his actual appeal, said Karen Friedman Agnifilo, criminal defense attorney and former executive chief of the trial division and chief assistant district attorney at the Manhattan District attorney’s office. Once the appeal is filed, it would still take additional months before the appeals court hears oral arguments and potentially months more before the court renders a decision.
It would not be unusual for the process to take a year or more, experts said.
How rare is a hung jury — that is, a jury that cannot come to a unanimous verdict?
A hung jury is not unheard of, but it would be far from the norm, experts said.
"Convictions are the most common result, statistically, and then acquittals would be the next most common, with hung juries in a distant last place," said Matthew J. Galluzzo, who worked as a Manhattan prosecutor before District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s tenure and is now in private practice. Galluzzo said he’s had more than 30 trials in his career but only one hung jury.
He added, however, that the statistics probably go out the window for a case involving a former president.
"Trump's case is very unusual," Galluzzo said. "I think a hung jury in this case is more likely than statistics might suggest."
If there is a hung jury, how long would it take for the prosecution to decide whether to retry the case?
It could range from a few days to a few weeks, Galluzzo said.
If the prosecution determines that the jury split was 11-1 for conviction, it "might decide to retry the case quickly. If it's a more even split, say 6-6 or 7-5, it could take weeks before they decide what to do," Galluzzo said.
Bill Otis, the former head of the appellate division of the U.S. attorney’s office for Virginia’s Eastern District, said Bragg would very likely retry the case if the jury hangs.
"He's basically staked his career and his political future on this case," Otis said.
Would a typical defendant facing the charges Trump is facing likely receive a jail sentence if convicted?
An analysis by Norman L. Eisen, who was a counsel for Donald Trump’s first impeachment and trial, calculated that during Bragg’s first year in office, Bragg’s team alone filed 166 felony counts for falsifying business records against 34 people or companies. Eisen found that approximately 1 in 10 cases in which the most serious charge was falsifying business records in the first degree resulted in some term of imprisonment. But he cautioned that other charges may have tipped the scales toward incarceration in some of those prior sentences.
Judge Juan Merchan’s potential decision on sentencing in the Manhattan case is anyone’s guess. Working in Trump’s favor is that he doesn’t have prior convictions and the charges are a low-level nonviolent felony, legal experts said. Working against Trump is that he has been held in contempt multiple times for breaching a gag order.
"If he had just been silent throughout the trial, I would think there would have been no realistic probability of a jail sentence," Galluzzo said of Trump. "But he has said things publicly that I think really create the possibility of incarceration."
If Trump is convicted, what is the likelihood of facing jail or prison?
The Secret Service, which handles former presidents’ security, has been planning for the possibility of Trump’s incarceration for gag order violations or a postconviction sentence, The New York Times, CBS and ABC have reported.
"For all settings around the world, the U.S. Secret Service studies locations and develops comprehensive and layered protective models that incorporate state of the art technology, protective intelligence and advanced security tactics to safeguard those we protect," Special Agent Joe Routh told PolitiFact. "In order to maintain operational security, we do not comment on specific protective operations."
Can Trump still run for president if convicted?
Yes. The U.S. Constitution upholds the principle that voters decide who shall represent them, and its qualifications are limited to natural-born citizenship, age (35 by Inauguration Day) and residency in the United States (14 years).
Convicted felons have run for president in the past. Lyndon LaRouche was convicted in 1988 of tax and mail fraud conspiracy and ran for president multiple times between 1976 and 2004. Eugene Debs was convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for an anti-war speech, then ran for president under the Socialist Party banner from a federal prison in Alabama in 1920.
Will Trump lose his voting rights if convicted?
That’s unlikely.
Trump is a registered voter in Palm Beach County. The Florida Department of State website states that "a felony conviction in another state makes a person ineligible to vote in Florida only if the conviction would make the person ineligible to vote in the state where the person was convicted."
New York law passed a law in 2021 that restores voting rights for people convicted of felonies upon their release from prison. Voters don’t lose their right to vote unless they are in prison serving a sentence for a felony conviction. People whose prison sentences are stayed pending appeal do not lose their voting rights.
What’s the status of the other criminal cases against Trump?
It’s unlikely that the other criminal cases will go to trial before Election Day.
The federal election inference case has been paused because of Trump’s claims of presidential immunity. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on that case by early July.
The Supreme Court decision would not affect the New York case because much of the alleged conduct occurred before Trump was president.
The federal classified documents case was to trial in May. But the judge postponed the date amid legal motions she has yet to rule on and she did not set a new date.
In Georgia, an appeals court agreed May 8 to review a lower court ruling that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can continue to prosecute Trump. That decision makes it less likely the case will reach trial before November.
CORRECTION, May 31, 2024: This story has been updated to reflect that Trump has 30 days from sentencing to signal his intent to appeal. An earlier version of this story was inaccurate on thetimeline.
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